solicitors won’t suggest completion date

KateO78

I am trying not to pull my hair out but our solicitor is driving me crazy. The whole chain has signed the paperwork weeks ago.  Our buyers solicitor keeps sending additional enquires, our solicitor said this can happen anytime until exchange of contracts.  However, our solicitor refuses to request or propose a completion date until the buyers solicitor confirms they are happy with the final enquires.  The onward chain have all proposed a date, it has been sent down the line but our solicitor will not entertain suggesting it yet! I understand of course we can’t exchange until the buyers solicitor is happy but I don’t understand why they can’t request a date ? Does this seem normal practice ?   It seems like a very passive approach from our guys.

Any thoughts ? 

csgohan4

no point in having a date if there are still inquiries, and it is just a date to hope for. Perhaps the buyers have a slow solicitor using the EA one, who knows, maybe they are dragging their feet?

Lokolo

Whats the point in suggesting dates when you have no idea when all queries have been asked?
As soon as dates are suggested, people start looking for movers, arranging, packing up etc. when you actually have no idea when all the questions will have been asked.
10 weeks isn't too bad. 
If your mortgage offer runs out in 3 weeks, then get on the phone to the estate agent and tell them this and get your buyer to get his solicitors to get his skates on.

greatcrested

How can a date be set, or even aimed for, if there are outstanding issues that will take an unknown period of time to resolve.

OK - a hoped for date can be agreed, but it's pretty meaningless.

eddddy

It might be more useful to discuss this with the chain - probably via the EAs - rather that through solicitors.

People will have different desires and constraints - e.g. somebody has a holiday planned, somebody else has family commitments, somebody else doesn't want to move before a particular date, somebody else might only want to complete on a Friday etc. (And some people might have to compromise to reach agreement.)

When you have all agreed on a set of possible dates, you can all tell your respective solicitors what those dates are. But obviously, if one (or more) of the solicitors isn't ready in time, you'll have to go through the process again.

That will probably be much faster and more transparent than leaving it to the solicitors.

Thrugelmir

Completion dates are something to be discussed through the EA. How many parties are involved in the chain? Contracts are (provisionally) signed very early on in the process. Doesn't mean anything though. Just in preparedness for when the time comes. 

Tiglet2

KateO78 said:

I am trying not to pull my hair out but our solicitor is driving me crazy. The whole chain has signed the paperwork weeks ago.  Our buyers solicitor keeps sending additional enquires, our solicitor said this can happen anytime until exchange of contracts.  However, our solicitor refuses to request or propose a completion date until the buyers solicitor confirms they are happy with the final enquires.  The onward chain have all proposed a date, it has been sent down the line but our solicitor will not entertain suggesting it yet! I understand of course we can’t exchange until the buyers solicitor is happy but I don’t understand why they can’t request a date ? Does this seem normal practice ?   It seems like a very passive approach from our guys.

Any thoughts ? 

The buyers solicitor has to confirm that they are happy with the replies to enquiries and are ready to proceed to an exchange.  Once they do that your solicitor will ask you for your preferred date and then the dates will be discussed with everyone else in the chain so that a date can be agreed.  There is absolutely no point in requesting a date either passively or aggressively until the buyer's solicitor has agreed that all enquiries have been satisfactorily answered - that is normal practice..